12A Project Corrections and Portfolio

Project Corrections

Brochure Inside Before

Brochure Outside Before

Brochure Outside After

Brochure Inside After

Infographic Before

Infographic After

Corrections Made and Time Spent

1. Spent about 15 minutes combing over my projects for typos.
2. Found them in my infographic, spent about 10 minutes correcting them, then another 5-10 adjusting the layout of the text, including changing font size, leading, and de-hyphenating.
3. Made the gradient background less aggressive.
4. Combed over it again just to be sure there were no typos.
5. Adjusted the inside flap of my brochure
6. Edited the shapes
7. Edited the text boxes
8. Made it more readable by not having body copy stretch over multiple pages
9. combed over and corrected typos.

Overall time spent: 1 1/2 hours

Portfolio

Description

Design a portfolio to show off the work I’ve done in Comm 130.

Process

Sketched out some ideas. Came up with the video game theme and went to Piskel.com to try my hand at pixel art. Made the box for my table of contents, along with the hearts and a small character.

Went to Indesign and used the shape tool and the text tool to create my title page and my contact page, the first themed after the original Legend of Zelda menus, the second themed after pong.

Used Illustrator to create some boxes for my main pages, theming them after level 1-1 in the original Super Mario Bros.Copied my creations over to Indesign. Them put images of m projects into the slides and wrote descriptions for them.

Audience

My classmates or potential employers.

Message

I have clever and fun ideas in my designs.

Font

8-bit operator // Decorative

Top Thing Learned

Maybe this is the number one thing I’ve learned in the entire course, but design work takes time. A lot of time.

12A: Brochure Project

Front

Back

 

Outside

Inside

Description

Design a brochure, using text wrap around an image at least once.

Process

First, I sketched a few ideas on paper. This actually took me quite a while, as I was kind of dry on ideas as far as brochures go. It was not something I had ever really thought about designing. I had no idea what to even make the brochure about; most of the company logo design I’ve been doing lately has been focused on a company that would likely stray away from making brochures. I had to think of a new topic, and then I saw that 2016’s Mental Health week had recently passed. Idea found.

I was unhappy with most of my layout ideas, but while I was creating shape maps of them in InDesign, I stumbled upon the main idea I would go on to use for my final design. I planned to have a happy face and a sad face, with the happy face replacing the sad face when you finally opened the brochure the entire way.

What the brochure looks like after opening the first flap, but before fully opening it. You can see how it looks when fully opened in the image above the text of this post.

I looked online to see if there were any free faces I could use, but I didn’t like any of them that I saw. I then opened up Illustrator and designed my two faces. It wasn’t hard, but I’m still adjusting to some of the tools and I probably made them in a pretty inefficient and roundabout way.

After that, I looked online for some stock photos I could use that would relate to mental health. I took one of them and masked out the background of it, to make it look more aesthetically appealing in my brochure.

After that, I followed my shape map in InDesign, placing things where I had originally planned for them to go, occasionally changing their locations just a bit if I thought it would look better. I struggled to find a font color that I wanted to use, so I ended up simple using white text with a black outline for my titles, choosing a thick sans-serif font. I don’t know why I went that route, exactly, but my gut told me that that was the aesthetic I needed to go for.

After laying out all of my elements and tweaking them as necessary, I saved the design and went to print up my draft. I made sure to use a full bleed, but failed to put guides where my folds would go. For my final design, I corrected that.

I then got a critique from a roommate and another friend, after I put in my body copy. They thought some of my copy wasn’t super effective and needed to have less of a focus on “here’s what not to do when helping someone with an illness,” or at least include a little more of what you should do in that situation. They liked my idea, but said it wasn’t lined up quite perfectly, which was true.

I did have to change my design a bit more drastically than I would have liked to incorporate those changes, but doing so made my final product significantly better.

Critique

I got a critique from a roommate and a friend. They suggested I work on the body copy, and add a section that would give people suggestions of what to say to people suffering from mental illness. They also pointed out some of the less-visually appealing patches of white space. The friend I had critiquing was actually somewhat familiar with design, and they noticed I didn’t really have a color scheme. I was going for monochromatic, but the yellow smile sort of ruined that. I took a look at color schemes that included the two colors I already had, and added in a third color (red) to compliment them, making my design follow a triadic color scheme.

Message

To promote mental health awareness and reduce the stigma attached to the various disorders.

Audience

Sufferers who wish to spread general knowledge about the issue and reduce stigma. Also, anyone who has a loved one who suffers from mental health disorders. It was also intended to help get the message out to anyone unfamiliar with the realities of mental illness, like people who had only really seen it explored in television shows or books.

In general, anyone interested in learning a little bit more about mental illness.

Top Thing Learned

Sometimes being made to work outside of your comfort zone is the thing you need the most. I feel like I learned a lot from this project; a project I was super worried about not being able to come up with anything for, and I came away with a design I could be proud of.

Color Scheme

Triadic // Cyan, Yellow, and Red

Title Font

Franklin Gothic Demi // Sans Serif
Franklin Gothic Heavy // Sans Serif

Copy Font

Centaur // Oldstyle

Thumbnails of Unedited Images

Image Sources

Happy and sad face logos are my own.

From the web:
Two people sitting in a doctor’s office

Happy face on finger

From unsplash.com:
Three people talking

10A: Web Page Mockup Project

Description

Design a mockup of a webpage.

Process

First I sketched out my ideas on a separate sheet of paper. Afterwords, I opened up photoshop and inserted a wireframe to use as a guide. I then made a shape map to use as a reference for my final design.

Afterwards, I used illustrator to design my images. I then created my design according to my shape map, making sure to use numerous layers as opposed to keeping everything mashed together into a single image. I also took care to keep those layers organized.

My design ended up quite different from my initial idea. My original plan was too cluttered.

Critique

My instructor gave me very valuable critique. The rough draft I submitted was too cluttered and it was impossible for my instructor to figure out where to look. She complimented the idea behind my design, but I knew I had to make some changes.

Message

Get across the look and feel of our brand that may not be incredibly apparent on Youtube.

Audience

Young adults, ages 12-20.

Top Thing Learned

I definitely had a time issue on this one. I need to give myself more time and manage my various projects a little better.

Color Scheme

Analagous // Red & Orange

Title Font

Sans Serif // Agency FB

Images Used

Source of Images

I created each vector in Illustrator myself. The Youtube image is from a video I created and posted to Youtube specifically for use as an image in this project.

9A: HTML & CSS Coding

Description

Create a webpage using HTML and CSS around the logo designed for the Business Identity Project.

Process

I designed my logo using illustrator. I then opened up our html template, and changed the text to reflect my own design process. After that, I edited the code just a bit, though most of my work after this point was done using CSS. I added a line of code linking the html file to my CSS file. After finishing with the text part of the assignment, I opened up the CSS file and edited it, starting by changing the colors of the design to match my logo. I changed the background, inserting my image of the two circles. I floated my logo to the left, allowing some text to be on the right of it.

Critique

I had an online friend look at my web page. In my initial design, it looked too much like the template. He suggested I make more changed, and I did. I edited the CSS so that the middle section stretched all the way to the top and bottom of the page. This was also when I added my background imaged to the design and floated the logo to the left.

Message

To communicate the design process of my logo.

Audience

Anyone interested in design or business identity.

Top Thing Learned

Html and CSS are like another language. If you don’t understand the basic rules of how it works, knowing a few words (lines of code) isn’t going to be that helpful.

Color Scheme

Monochromatic // Red

Title Font

Sans Serif // Europe Underground

Copy Font

Sans Serif // Ebrima

Thumbnails

Source of Each Image

The images are my own.

8A: Infographics Project

Description

Create an infographic in Illustrator.

Process

I started by sketching my ideas for my design. Then I wrote out a general guideline for the text I’d need to include. After doing that, I realized I may have gotten in over my head with my original idea, which was “How to Play Magic: The Gathering”. The rules are not simple, and finding a way to explain everything efficiently was proving to be a challenge. I searched online for some images I could use, though my initial findings need me to do some photoshop work on them to make the backgrounds transparent.

After my preparatory work was completed, I opened up illustrator and laid out my shapes according to my sketch, adding a few areas here and there for the now massive volume of text I was going to put in. When I had it all laid out in Illustrator… I didn’t like it. But I figured that it would look better once I got my images ready and added to the page.

This proved to be a breaking point for me in terms of this assignment. I opened up photoshop, opened the images I needed to edit, and attempted to use masking along with the selection tool to make all the backgrounds transparent. It wasn’t going well. I kept ending up with jagged edges or weird patches that were the wrong opacity. I know, I know, I was doing it all wrong. But I was also running out of time, and I knew I had a number of images to work on, each more difficult to edit than the last.

I turned in my rough draft with boxes acting as placeholder images. It looked awful. It looked irredeemably awful. I sort of lost hope at that point.

I started the entire thing from scratch. I tried to make a less confusing layout, tried to cut sections I had initially thought of as necessary but seemed less vital now, and messed around with all sorts of color schemes. Nothing was working. I was spent hours and hours stopping and restarting this project, until finally I spoke to my instructor and asked for help. She suggested I try change my subject and present less information. She also suggested some light application of the gradient tool, as one of the issues I was having was that the boxes I was making with the shape tool all looked… bad.

I went home and applied her suggestions. I moved to a much less dense topic while still covering Magic The Gathering like I had wanted to. I found new images, specifically searching for vectors that were PNG files and had preserved their transparencies. It still took a long time, but I was able to make something I’m not totally ashamed of in the end.

Critique

I actually avoided critique this time around, as I was positive my design was bad. I should have gotten some anyway, as some sort of idea of what new direction to go in would have been extremely helpful. I think I was just too upset about how bad my initial design looked to seek help until it was almost too late.

When I did finally ask my instructor for advice, the advice she gave me was invaluable. In addition to the things I mentioned earlier, she was also the one who pointed out that I should find better images rather than keeping beating my head against the ones I had already chosen. That was a lifesaver.

Message

The color philosophy of Magic: The Gathering is a lot of fun to explore.

Audience

New Magic players or players interested in learning how to play.

Top Thing Learned

You can’t convey everything through your design. If the message you are trying to convey is too complicated or requires too much explanation, the design will suffer for it. Choose to convey more with less, obviously, but don’t try to convey so much that you can’t make an attractive design.

Color Scheme

I technically used a rainbow of colors for this project, but that was out of necessity considering what the topic was. The main color scheme I used was:

Analogous // Red, Orange, Brown with White and Grey as neutrals.

Title Font

Decorative // ingrained

Decorative // Percolator Expert TM

Copy Font

Sans Serif // Britannic Bold

Thumbnails of Any Original, Unedited Images Used in the Project

Image Sources

http://mtg.wikia.com/wiki/Blue

http://mtg.wikia.com/wiki/Red

http://mtg.wikia.com/wiki/White

http://mtg.wikia.com/wiki/Black

http://mtg.wikia.com/wiki/Green

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3f/Magicthegathering-logo.svg

https://hydra-media.cursecdn.com/mtgsalvation.gamepedia.com/0/07/Cardback_yellow.jpg?version=a910a85527a40181584c04dafe06ec64

7A Business Identity Project

Letterhead

Business Card Front

Business Card Back

Description

Create a logo for a company and a brand with a consistent image.

Process

I started with some sketches. I’ve had ideas for a logo for an imaginary company by the name of “Faultline” for a long time, so I based my sketches on those ideas.

I then worked a few of those sketches into full-fledged design in Adobe Illustrator. This took the use of the Shape tool, the Direct Selection tool, the creation of masking layers, and the text tool.

I then went to Facebook and my roommates to get feedback on which one they prefered. I used that data to decide which designs to focus on, and went with two of them, one for the top of the letterhead and the other for the primary logo.

My logos were based on the idea of the earth being split in two, and I wanted that idea to shine through on all of its designs.

After that, I went to work on a letterhead, and I chose to have my long, multi-circled design go across the top, and made a space for contact information across the bottom. After that, I made two new projects in illustrator and set them to the appropriate size for a business card. I used the third logo design there, placing one opaquely on the front side and a fully visible one on the back.

Critique

My instructor didn’t love my business card design. I didn’t either.She said she didn’t love the choice of colors and didn’t like the way the circle looked; it seemed off somehow.

The biggest thing I took away from the critique, though, was that my concept of the earth being split in two wasn’t coming across.

I made strides to make the effect more clear. I redesigned the logo on my business card from the ground up, deciding to have the “F” in “Faultline” literally split the circle in half. From there, I changed the other designs to emphasize the split more than the circles themselves.

Message

Our products are cool and stylish.

Audience

Teenagers and people in their early 20’s.

Top Thing Learned

I learned that no matter how strong my vision is, without context it can be easily missed. Much like my last project, I learned that I need to make my ideas less subtle.

Color Scheme

Letterhead: Monochromatic // Black, Gray, White

Card: Monochromatic // Red, Black, White

Title Font

Letterhead:

A Song For Jennifer // Decorative

Eternity Tomorrow Regular // Decorative

Card: Europe

Underground // Sans Serif

Copy Font

Letterhead:

VertigoFLF // Sans Serif

Card:

VertigoFLF // Sans Serif

Source of Each Image

I designed each image from scratch.

Comm 100 Class Summaries

September 15, 2016

Today we went over the syllabus. I learned all of the things that I need to do to complete this course. I also learned about the availability of academic advisors specific to my emphasis, which will help give me a direction and allow me to succeed. I also learned about the existence of communications workshops, which will cover everything from writing skills to resume-building to interviewing successfully. I can use these workshops to gain valuable skills that will help me to have a successful professional life.

September 22, 2016

Today we received a lecture from John Thompson. He went over the I-Comm program, introducing us to the weekly Scroll magazine and the BYU Idaho student-run marketing team, Soapbox. I learned that there are paid positions in these programs, and that they can be worth my time even if the effort required for them outweighs the credit hours received. I also learned that one of the most important skills to have in a Communications major is being a storyteller.

September 29, 2016

Today Lane Williams spoke to us about the Journalism emphasis. While I’d be lying if I said I had any personal interest in journalism beyond perhaps professional criticism, I still learned things that I could apply to my current emphasis. I learned that as a BYU Idaho student, I have free access to the Wall Street Journal, which I can use to stay up-to-date on current events and learn how to write more effectively from reading it. I would say that the most relevant thing I learned today was that more marketing dollars are currently being spent on producing original content than on advertising, meaning that I should keep my eyes open for opportunities in that space and develop skills that can help me become an asset to companies looking to produce content.

October 6, 2016

Today we were taught by Brain Howard and Christian Mawlam about the video production emphasis. This being my current emphasis  made it very relevant to me, though I have been considering changing my emphasis, or perhaps even my major entirely. I’m finding visual communication and graphic design to be really appealing and engaging to me, though I want to give this video stuff a shot before I change things up. Anyways, today I learned that a video production team has to have a few members who can wear many different “hats,” as there are so many different things you need to consider when shooting and producing a video. This means that if I were to continue with my emphasis, it would be more important for me to be well-rounded than to be a master of any particular aspect of production. Video production is one career field where being a jack-of-all-trades is preferable.

I also learned that salaries for this career, at least when it comes to news networks, are at an all-time low, and that’s distressing.

October 13, 2016

Today Caryn Esplin came in to speak to us about visual communication. She actually is the one who wrote the textbook we’re using in my Comm 130 class, which is cool. I’m very interested in this subject. So far I find my Comm 130 (Visual Communication) homework to be the most engaging of all of my classes. I’ve gone as far as putting off other classwork so as to spend more time on my design projects because I just find it fun. I think the main thing I learned today is how highly employers value those with design skills, especially those proficient with professional tools like Photoshop.

October 20, 2016

Today we were lectured by Andra Hansen about the Advocacy program. I was actually unaware of the existence of this program, and the subject interests me, so you could say I learned a great deal of valuable information! This is a subject I might consider pursuing in my academic future. One of the things that stuck out to me from her lecture was the idea of not calling people a “non.” I had heard of the concept of “othering” people before, but she put it so plainly that I gained a new understanding of the idea.

Which do you like best?

Hey everyone, for my visual communication course I had to design a few logos and now I need to get some feedback on which one people like best. I’ve got three different ones, but I have multiple color schemes for each. Tell me which one you like best upon first glance, as that’s what I need most of all, but if you’d like to give me your thoughts beyond that, that is appreciated too.

6A: Photodesign Montage Project

Description

Design a montage image with a spiritual message by effectively using masking in Photoshop.

Process

I started out this project by browsing through royalty-free photos I could use, hoping one or more of them would spark some inspiration in me. I gathered up a number of them that I liked, and found that a space theme seemed to resonate with me. I then searched for spiritual quotes that would fit the theme, and came across this one by C.S. Lewis.

I started out by making a blank canvas and dragging my first image onto it. I then used the transform tool to make the image the proper size for the canvas. Then I duplicated the layer so as to prevent any of my edits from that point on becoming destructive. I used a sharpness filter over the image, because I found the artistic filters to be a bit too gaudy, and honestly unnecessary. The images I chose had clearly already been heavily photoshopped, and doing too much to them beyond what was already there seemed excessive.

I then proceeded to drag two photos onto the canvas, resizing them as well. I placed them how I liked them, and then created a masking layer and made them look naturally occurring in the image. I then used the text tool to write my quote across the image, using the “overlay” option to make the text appear slightly transparent.

After my instructor critique, I realized that the clever thing I had done with my image was not very apparent.  I had used an image of the earth at night to make fake galaxies in the night sky of my image, thinking that that was an almost literal representation of the quote I used. I decided that in order to make my little trick more apparent, I’d instead put the entire image of the earth in the background and mask a layer of stars in the area above the atmosphere. It’s a bit tough to describe, but you can see what I came up with in the photo. I also decreased the leading between lines of text and condensed the text to a smaller section of the page to increase readability. I also had to do away with the overlay effect of the text, as it just wasn’t working. I changed it to a very light gold to match the color scheme of I was using.

I don’t know how well it came across, but I was going for a bit of a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy vibe, here.

Critique

I had my roommates look at my image, but I found myself unable to keep my mouth shut and pointed out the whole “using the lights on earth as galaxies” effect I was going for, which meant that I didn’t get an opportunity to see if they’d notice it or not. They had little to add except that they liked the idea and thought my earth-galaxy thing was clever.

My instructor critique was much more valuable. She pointed out the leading issue I had, and how the words weren’t as readable as they should be. She also didn’t pick up on the earth-galaxy trick, saying that the light I masked in didn’t really mesh well with my overall design. This made me realize that I needed to make the night-sky-earth concept much more apparent, because no one was going to notice it and if you don’t know that’s what you’re looking at, the design was pretty messy.

Message

I wanted to convey an uplifting message with the use of cool pictures of space.

Audience

My fellow BYU Idaho students.

Top Thing Learned

It doesn’t matter how clever an idea is if it’s hidden away or goes over everyone’s head. You have to be clear and obvious in order to convey what you’re trying to convey.

Color Scheme

Complimentary // Indigo & Gold

Font

AR BONNIE

Thumbnails of Original, Unedited Images

Source of Images

www.unsplash.com

5A: Photodesign Project

Description

Take a photo considering the elements of design, then edit it in photoshop and create a project that emphasizes the color scheme used.

Process

I took a few additional photos when I was out taking photos for my last assignment. While taking them, I considered the rule of thirds and leading and got this shot. After that, I sketched a few ideas for my project. The initial idea I had when presented with the details of the project was the top-left one, but it didn’t translate from my head to the page very well. As it turns out, it was a cool idea, but in practice did not look very good.Maybe I can build off of that idea for another project; it just wasn’t right for this one. I went with the one in the bottom-right, as it seemed like it would be the best way to present a color scheme.

On opening the photo in Photoshop, I realized that the picture I wanted to use for this project did not really have much of a color scheme. My roommate Tanner, who is in the photo, had on a shirt that was red and grey, and his pants were white. While I could have gone with a monochromatic color scheme focusing on either all black and white or shades of red and black, I’ve been sticking to monochromatic color schemes pretty often, and I wanted to poke at the edges of it a bit this time. So I decided to change some things in the photo.

I used the selection tool to select certain parts of Tanner’s shirt, then used the selective color function to change the main color from red to orange. I did the same for the secondary color, only this time changing it from a dark grey to a blue. I then selected his pants, and changed them to blue. I spent a long time tweaking these colors, as it was tough to make them not look totally unnatural. After a while, I managed to get somewhere I felt good about. There was still something odd about it though. Turns out, thanks to my use of the selection tool, I had some sharp edges around the selected areas. I used the blur tool to mitigate this.

Once I had the photo the way I wanted it, I opened a new file in photoshop, set it to the right size, and dragged my photo onto it. I set the background to orange, using the eyedropper tool to make sure I got the right shade. I then used the shape tool to make the blue rectangles. I made another shape that was a lighter shade of orange, and reordered the layers so that it would appear underneath the photo. I used the text tool to write the text, choosing two contrasting fonts. Unfortunately, I was struggling to find fonts that fit my theme in the default, so I went with something I was unhappy with. This poor font choice didn’t make it to the final design, though. After that I used the shape tool to make the four squares I was using for my color swatches.

 

Critique Process

After submitting my draft, I got some critique from my instructor. She didn’t like the choice of font, either. She also said that the design was a little too “boxy,” which I agreed with. She suggested I bring the photo down farther, change the font, and bring the color swatches closer together and present them differently. She also suggested I have the text bleed off of the rectangles a bit, to make it more dynamic.

I went back to the design, trying to decide how to fix it. I went online to search for fonts, since I was unhappy with any of the options available to me at that time, and found a new one. I still don’t feel that it’s perfect, but it is significantly better. I also moved it up slightly so it bled over onto the photo a bit, too. When attempting to resize the image and make it take up more of the frame, I accidentally just moved it down slightly diagonally. Though it was an accident, I liked the way it looked way, way more. I also had the idea to change the color swatches to a diamond shape, and bring them down towards the middle of the two rectangles. While fiddling around with that a bit, I thought it would look good to layer them over one another, and it did! So I adjusted the swatches until I thought they looked just right. I took out the large square of lighter orange I had in in the background in order to make it look less boxy, but then I found the negative space on the side of the photo distracting. I added in more of my color swatch diamonds, and that mitigated it a bit.

I wanted to minimize the boxy-ness even further, so I went about doing something to the corner of my photo. At first, I layered rectangles over it in a sort of stripey pattern. I didn’t love the way it looked. Then I thought to have them behind the photo, and it looked way better. It lowered the oppressive feeling of the square shape without being in-your-face and distracting from the focus of the image, the photo.

Message

To inspire creativity.

Audience

Students, primarily. Maybe seeing this cool guy being all cool will inspire them to try to be cool too, and do something creative.

Top Thing Learned

I hated my first pass on this thing. I thought it looked atrocious. I’m still not happy with it, though I like it significantly more in this final iteration than the first pass I did. But when I got my critique, my instructor didn’t think it was so bad. There were obviously things that could be improved, but I was under the impression that it was an unsalvageable mess. I was ready to give up on it entirely. I guess the number one thing I learned is that while it is important to be critical of your own work, being so critical of it that it impedes your ability to improve it is easy to do. Getting a second opinion from others is extremely important in design, not just to point out the problems, but also to point out the strengths in it, too. If not for the feedback I got, I might have submitted it as it was, having resigned myself to the thought that it was garbage.

Color Scheme and Color Names

Complimentary // Orange & Blue

Title Font Name and Category

Decorative // Rockmaker

Copy Font Name and Category

Sans Serif // Haettenschweiler

Thumbnails of Unedited Images Used

Source of Images

The image is mine. Photo was taken on 10/7/2016 near my apartment.